Petrol lawnmowers are often associated with large gardens but the narrow cut (39 cm / 15 inch) Mountfield SP414 is aimed at owners of small to medium sized gardens who want to cut their grass without the hassle of power cables getting in the way. It’s small, lightweight yet powerful so should you buy it ?

Mountfield have been making lawnmowers, garden machinery and ride-on mowers for nearly 50 years and their experience shows. A nice touch is the moulded in handle at the front of the cutting deck so that the mower can be easily tipped backwards for cleaning. Unlike many petrol lawnmowers, the Mountfield SP414 features a tough polypropelene cutting deck which contributes to the low over all weight of just 25 kg which makes it nimble and easy to maneouvre.

Sitting on top of the cutting deck is a quiet and economical Chinese-made RS100 100 cc 4 stroke engine which is fed by a 0.75 litre fuel tank with an easy to reach filler cap. Now a 100 cc engine may seem small compared to some of the other mowers that we’ve reviewed but the power that it produces is in proportion to the smaller cutting width.

Out of the box it needs a bit of assembly which took around 20 minutes, most of that was spent assembling the grass box which was a little fiddly ! We then simply added oil (not included) through the oil filler which was slightly tricky to access, filled it with petrol and it started on the first pull.

The handle is height adjustable and, although there is no padding on the handle itself, it’s still comfortable to hold for long periods. It’s also feels firmly attached to the mower something that isn’t that common at this price point ! It also folds in half for storage so that it takes up less room in your shed.

We’re pleased to report that it’s started each and every time on the first pull ever since. If you’ve been put off by the thought of tugging away at the starting cord on a petrol mower then we’ve some good news for you. Due to the small size of the engine the Mountfield SP414 only needs the lightest of tugs to start it, if you’re not very strong or have a back problem you should be able to start this easily.

But how does it cut the grass ?

Well, if you’re concerned that the small engine might lack the power to tackle longer grass then you’d needn’t worry. We found that it had plenty of power in reserve and tackled long wet grass with ease.

The cutting height can be adjusted between 25 mm and 70 mm in 5 preset steps by three height adjusters. We’d rather see a single point height adjustment but the Mountfield SP414 has been built to a price point and it’s not really a big issue as they’ve not skimped on other areas of the design.

When used with the grass collector it picked up the cuttings and left a neat finish. The grass box has a 40 litre capacity which is about right for a petrol lawn mower of this size but it can be used without the grass box if you want to rear discharge the cuttings on to the lawn for later collection.

The four chunky wheels (the rear pair are driven and slightly larger in size) allowed it to roll over the lumps and bumps of our test lawn and the self-propelled feature worked well pulling the mower along at just the right speed. If you don’t want the self-propelled feature then the the Mountfield HP414 is identical in every way except it’s a push mower.

For the money it’s hard to fault the Mountfield SP414, it’s light at around 25 kg, pulls itself along, cuts the grass well and easy to maneouvre. This makes it ideally suited for small to medium sized gardens up to 400 squares metres in size but we could see it used in larger gardens where space is tight and you need to weeve in and out of tight spaces.

The Mountfield SP414 gets a well deserved 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended !